Living between Valbonne and Arundel amongst the idle rich

Drinkers are more intelligent – official

There was an article in the Times recently which revealed details of a study undertaken by the London School Of Economics about the link between drinking and intelligence. It concluded that the cleverer you are the more likely you are to be a drinker. It seems anyone with an IQ of over 125 were more likely to need a drink, possible because of days spent dealing with comparatively stupid non drinkers. This seems to me to be entirely consistent with my thoughts. Sober people are for the most part dull and boring and most of my friends are drinkers, which of course implies that I spend most of my time with more intelligent people. In fact now I come to think of it I know for a fact that I am more witty and become more intelligent the more I drink. It is another fact that generally, drinkers to do trust non drinkers. This apparently is no new trait, but is actually documented as early as the battle of 1066. Perhaps King Harold was keeping an eye out for those pesky teetotallers?

I found a den of intelligence last night as we were invited to a drinks, or should I say an intelligence, party with one-eyed Colin The Pirate (there is only one I in Colin) and Sandra, his sultry goddess. As it turns out, he was not very intelligent trying to drive back from East London at 3pm on the last Friday before Christmas, so we met him coming in from work just as we were leaving. Perhaps he should have had more to drink in his life? A poorer writer than my good self might conclude that today’s column is a bit one-eyed.

That Nice Lady Decorator showing some solidarity with my moustache

Earlier, I had been talked into dropping into The White Hart next door to witness a rare phenomenon; One of my Sprogs working. She was called upon by bar manager Terribly Tall Timothy Taylor to help serve some of the most intelligent people on Arundel, who were all seeking to improve their intelligence as a kind of Christmas presents to themselves. Yes, she was serving behind the bar and the first thing she did was to get me to buy her a drink. You see? intelligent.

Earlier still, in the hubris of some rare sunshine, and missing the turn off the A27 to The Dover, a parking area near Angmering where I can often be seen tramping about the countryside attempting to intimidate those bathroom scales, I ended up at Patching. It is sometimes the case, when I want to increase that intimidation that I walk back from where That Nice Lady Decorator and I have parked to ensure I get my full 4 miles of exercise. Yesterday I miscalculated the distance from Patching to Arundel and walked nearly 11 kms (according to my Ordnance Survey phone app), that’s nearly 7 miles in decimal. (The decimal bit is a joke – not the first time I have used it – but some amongst us missed it the last time and pointed out my “error”.)

The walk was thoroughly unpleasant because of the torrential overnight rain, which seems to be a theme that will run right up to Christmas. Those Tenerife brochures will be out again today. Those and the Currencies Direct brochures, so that I can calculate how much I will save in euros compared with using my bank, or worse still the Post Office whose rates are truly awful.

As far as I know, and it seems I do not need to know anything, we have nothing in the diary today, which is a bit strange this close to Christmas, but doubtless we shall find some intelligent people with whom to mix somewhere at some stage.